Monday, March 19, 2012

Last week, I decided to pick up another book to read, in addition to the five other books I'm in the middle of (I'm not joking and will list them out if you request it). This book has been on my mind for a really long time actually and I hadn't read it since I was in elementary school. It is "From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler," which in my opinion, is a terrible name, but a fantastic book by E.L. Konigsburg about two children from Connecticut who run away to NYC and live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a week. It was always a childhood thought of mine how cool it would be to live in the grocery store and I guess a museum would be a lot more classy, but also a lot more scary and with fewer bags of double-stuffed Oreos to consume.

At the time this story takes place, it was still free to get into the Met. Now, the recommended donation is up to $25. Children under 12 can still get in for free, so Claudia and Jamie would have gotten in alright. The children keep their violin and trumpet cases in an urn and a sarcophagus that still remain in the museum. The bed they choose to sleep in and the fountain in which they bathe are no longer there - maybe this really did happen and the museum decided it should get rid of these things so that others would not want to move in. Maybe they could use the one outside the museum if they want to move back in.

Claudia and Jamie follow different tour groups around while they are there so they can learn about the Egyptians and the Italian Renaissance which is exactly what I would do if I lived there. I've actually thought that if I were ever to switch careers or go back to school and find myself with summers off or things they call spring and winter breaks that it would be cool to pick a few galleries a day and go through the entire museum. Claudia and Jamie left after a week so they did not get to go through the whole museum, but they did a good job while they were there.

My favorite quote which of course still stands true to this day:

"If you think of doing something in New York City, you can be certain that at least two thousand other people have that same thought. And of the two thousand who do, about one thousand will be standing in line waiting to do it."

Sunday, March 11, 2012

RG has been calling me a West Village wannabe for a few months now. I can't help it. The West Village is my current dream world. I can't stop thinking about living there one day. I don't think I'll be able to swing it with my next move, but perhaps with the next one I can get a nice brownstone townhouse on Commerce Street and live my days walking the quiet streets, wandering into small book stores, going to poetry readings, and eating at the 9,000 cupcake and gelato shops there.

So when Kat and I decided to take a Stray Boots "text message tour" through an area of the city, it was only natural to pick the West Village tour. Some other options (which we may do another time) were the Financial District, The Met, Times Square, and Harlem. We got together to strategize (read: gossip) during brunch at Cornelia Street Cafe and then walked to the arch in Washington Square Park to begin our journey.

The tour was basically a scavenger hunt which sent you to different places and asked you questions about each place that you had to answer in order to get the next clue. Then the website interface would give you some cool facts about the place you just were:

Some of the places we were taken on our tour / hunt:

Washington Square Park

The Silversmith, a jewelry store with the address of 184 3/4 West 4th Street

Northern Dispensary, a public clinic where Edgar Allen Poe was treated

McNulty's Rare Teas and Choice Coffees

The building where Monica, Rachel, Chandler, and Joey are supposed to live on Bedford and Grove

Murray's Cheese Shop

Chess Forum, where we were asked the color of the pieces in the exotic bird chess set

Cherry Lane Theatre

The Stonewall Inn

The village was definitely a good choice for the tour because there is so much history there and so many small streets and corners that you may never end up going to on a normal day's walk. Plus, it is FREAKING ADORABLE. My second favorite discovery of the day was this awesome mural that includes four of the coolest people who have ever lived. (My favorite discovery of the day is the ice cream further below, duh.)

We did end up "cheating" a couple times in the game. The first was right in the beginning when we were told to "ask a New Yorker" what NYU finance students throw at the statue of Garibaldi at the beginning of the school year. Since we didn't know the answers as New Yorkers ourselves and assumed people around wouldn't know, we googled that it was pennies. The second time was right after that when faced with this clue:

We didn't know if Bobsting was a typo or what and figured that there must be a library around the park but gave up too early in our search. Turns out, as google told us, there was Bobst Library at the corner of the park and we walked in to find out the answer was "written wisdom". The third time wasn't really cheating because we didn't find the answer online and still had to guess. This clue was at the Comedy Cellar and it wasn't our fault we couldn't answer. Stray Boots asked us how many Wayans brothers had performed there and we didn't see the apparent poster that was about the Wayans Bros and had this fact written on it. It must have been taken down at some point after this game was last edited.

The tour was really a perfect way to spend the day. We also took a few sidetrips on our walk:

A puppy shop where these chihuahuas were snuggling:

The Cones store (272 Bleeker) where Heidi Klum likes to get ice cream:

Molly's Cupcakes at the end of the day where we played real-life Words with Friends:

I couldn't have picked a better way to enjoy our extra hour of daylight.